A Dying Woman's Thoughts
by Rama Pi
Summary: /Sometimes she hates him/ They dream of freedom.


**Rating:** T

**Warnings:** Vague sex, child abuse, language

**Genre:** History, angst

**Timeline:** Pre-comic

**Characters:** Walter Kovacs, Sylvia Kovacs

**Spoilers:******** Walter's story**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Watchmen. My sincere apologies to Alan Moore.

_'For it was not into my ear you whispered, but my heart.'_

-Judy Garland

* * *

Sometimes she hates him.

_He is born screaming as all children are, twisting about in the doctor's hands. In those moments all she wants is sleep and a life that isn't this one. The doctor declares him a boy and she mutters, 'Walter' before falling to sleep. It is an ugly name for an ugly scream. She doesn't care if she ever wakes up again._

Sometimes she loves him.

_He peers up at her, a tiny tiny blue-eyed thing, not good for much. She can sort of vaguely maybe see the father's face in the curve of his pudgy cheeks and the splash of freckles that crawl down his arms like a disease. She tucks a finger under his chin and he grabs it, squeezing so tightly, and his eyes never falter from her face. She shivers under the brilliant innocence. She knows she will destroy him._

But then he does something, something stupid, and she can't love him anymore.

_He cries all the time. Colic the doctors say and she can't ask them to make it stop because then they'll ask why and… she won't let this baby go. She didn't get an abortion, she won't give in now. But the man in her arms twitches and glares down at her. "Didn't tell me you had a fuckin' kid," he barks._

"_J-just ignore him," she pleads, trying to pull him back into the moment. But Walter keeps crying, shrieking. The man shoves her off and does her quick and easy and then he's gone and there's no money on the table. She starts crying too._

_She slams the door of Walter's bedroom open and screams, "Shut up!" He only wails louder. "Shut up shut up shut up! Goddamn it! SHUT UP!" She slams one hand against his crib and he goes silent, staring with those ungodly blue eyes. She hates that he makes her like this. _

But sometimes…

_He sits in the living room and stares out the window. Just stares. She thinks he's probably retarded because he doesn't seem to think much. He just stares, like there's something important to look at when there isn't._

"_What are you doing?"_

"_Will they come Mama?" She hates that he calls her that, like he truly cares._

"_Who?"_

"_The heroes!"_

_She almost cries because no they won' come. No one will ever come to rescue little red-headed tenement boys, especially not the heroes._

They drift in a strange relationship. He will do anything for her and she still doesn't know whether keeping him was a good idea. Sometimes his stare is too intense and she leaves for awhile, but when she returns he's always there, always watching, always waiting.

He dreams of heroes and she dreams of darkness and release, which maybe isn't so different at all. They are only looking for freedom.

"_Mama I gotta go to the grocery store," he says from the door and she glances his way. He has grown. He is no longer the useless little thing with god awful blue eyes, even if his stare is the same. He is rail thin, small and redheaded and freckled and she hates how much he reminds her of his father._

_She tosses her latest wad of cash at him and tells him to come back soon. She doesn't look at him because his hair is too damn bright in this sunlight. She doesn't know he won't come back._

"Wh-where will you go, boy?" she snarls in the door. She's halfway to tears, but she knows he won't hear them. "Who'll look after a retard like you huh? Who?! I've raised you your whole goddamned life! How dare you walk out on me, you brat!" She screams at him all the way to the door, where the social service workers stare at her with the same horrible familiar intensity. They are accusing her, but she does not give in. Their eyes are just like Walter's.

She glares back until the door finally closes and she will never see him again. She cries harder then she's cried since she found out she was pregnant. The landlady finally comes up to find out why she's pounding on the wall. She doesn't have an answer.

_The years dance by in ugly circles and she's trapped and wondering where he is. But she never finds out because they kept it secret and he never writes. She can't blame him. He got out while he could. Maybe it's for the best._

_She still cries his name into the cold dark when she is shot through the guts though. She hopes he will never find out. But more then that, she hopes he found his heroes._


End file.
